This is a simple online multi-player PICO-8 game. It is a reproduction of the physical dice game Martian Dice. It is a fun little game for anyone. The rules of the game are simple so you can start quickly. There is a fair amount of luck involved so anyone can win.

This online variant lets you:

  • Play with friends in a private room
  • Play with strangers in the public room
  • Play against a bot when there is nobody online

How to play?

You are randomly assigned a name/alias. If you want to change it you can do so from the menu. It must be six characters or less.

To play with friends, let one friend create a private room. They should share the room ID with the others. The others should then join this room.

To play with strangers, just hop into the public room. Hopefully there's someone there already. If not, there will be a bot you can play against.

There is a very basic chat function. Use the up and down arrows to select a message. Press an action key to send it.

Once everyone is inside the room, the host can start the game. The host is typically the player who first entered the room. When the host leaves the room, the role is transferred to someone else.

When a player does not make their move in time, a dialog pops up which lets you intervene. You have the following options:

  • Wait gives the player more time
  • Skip ends their turn
  • Remove kicks the player from the game

Controls

  • Select - Arrow keys. This applies to menus, when editting text, when selecting a chat message, to make a move, etc.
  • Confirm - Action buttons (Z or X). For simplicity, both action buttons act identically.
  • Cancel - Select a different option. Cancelling is done implicitly, by changing the current option.

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

Pico-8 online multiplayer! It's amazing. Fun game too. But I (still) think the dice animation should be much faster.

(+1)

Thanks. I may indeed bump the speed a bit. Note, next to player experience, the speed also impacts the load on the backend, and indirectly the hosting cost. However, given the game's current and foreseeable popularity, I don't think I have to worry about hosting cost! ;-)